The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems Reviews

• 
  Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell

  
  
  
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  I was really curious about Edna St. Vincent Millay because she's mentioned in this book I have: BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN. A friend and contemporary of Dorothy Parker (the OG 'bad b*tch'), she's portrayed as fiercely and fearlessly intellectual in the book, with a tongue as sharp as an adamantium blade.
  
  
  
  I'm very particular about what kinds of poetry I like and do not like. Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and John Donne are my three favorites, and I hold everything I read up to them.
  
  
  
  Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems are emotionally wrenching, with beautiful writing and interesting syntax, that manage to convey ideas within the parameters of her chosen meters without coming across as too twee or contrived. Her motifs of choice seem to be nature and lost love, and her use of evocative imagery to drive her points home really are brilliant.
  
  
  
  Her famous poem is probably "The Harp Weaver", but I liked “Never May the Fruit Be Plucked” and "The Spring and the Fall" best. One is about love being this elusive thing, comparing being heart-sick to having a dearth of love when the rest of the world is oversaturated with it. The other compares the beginning and the end of a relationship to the seasons of spring and fall. Her sonnets are also good, but I like sonnets and not everyone does.
  
  
  
  I will say that her poems do feel a tad more "amateur" than most published poets, in the sense that her ideas do not always feel "polished" and that she sometimes subscribes to more Hallmarkian sentiments. But in a way, this works in her favor - it makes her poems more accessible. Young people - especially young women - will get a lot out of her work, I think. She captures those adolescent pangs of despair and angst and loneliness quite well.
  
  
  
  A hip-hip-hooray for St. Vincent Millay!
  
  
  
  3 stars.
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  Theo Logos

  Feast
  
  I drank at every vine,
  The last was like the first.
  I came upon no wine
  So wonderful as thirst.
  
  I gnawed at every root.
  I ate of every plant.
  I came upon no fruit
  So wonderful as want.
  
  Feed the grape and bean
  To the vintner and monger;
  I will lie down lean
  With my thirst and my hunger.
  
  This small volume of poetry, like the gorgeous poem above, truly was a feast. Its title poem, The Harp-Weaver, won the Pulitzer Prize In 1923, yet is among the less interesting offerings here, as it harks back to an earlier time of sentimental poetry. The balance of these poems have a more modern edge, and deal with subjects from death to desire with an honest gaze that was still novel in 1923.
  
  Millay’s sonnets comprise more than half this volume, and are its beating heart. While one or two of these are among her better known work, such as the amazing What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, many of them have never appeared in any collections I have read. Yet almost all are startling in their beauty and power. Too many stand out to list them all, but pay special attention to I, Being Born A Woman, Pity Me Not, and What’s This Of Death.
  
  I will make special note of one sonnet, Sometimes When I Am Wearied, because it expresses my initial reaction when first I read Vincent’s poems, many year ago. The relevant segment reads:
  
  Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note
  In me a beauty that was never mine,
  How first you knew me in a book I wrote,
  How first you loved me for a written line.
• 
  Laura

  Free download available at
  Project Gutenberg
  
  I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and it will be published by Project Gutenberg.
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  Carol

  Love this tiny book printed in the 1920s. I love her poetry, especially The Ballad of the Harp Weaver (The Pulitzer Prize in 1923). The poem is a testimony of a mother's unconditional love for her child. That although they are poor (world-wise), they are rich in love. Love can also be seen here as a form of sustenance.
  
  It is also Millay's attempt to expose the traditional role of women in society. The woman's choice to leave behind her previous life (playing the harp which she values) behind for motherhood. Why is there a harp in the home? The harp symbolizes women's ambitions outside of motherhood will always remain, regardless of whether society accepts it. The poem asks for society to see women as more than one dimensional, in hope that all women can reach a freedom outside of death.
  
  
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  ania

  godtier sonnets; “i shall remember you with love, or season”
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  Juliana

  Favorites: "The dragonfly," "A visit to the asylum," "The curse," "Humoresque," "The ballad of the harp-weaver," "Hyacinth," and "Sonnets from an ungrafted tree"
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  Pat

  I think I could have read this book at different times in my life and found some passage that sang to me. This is the wonder of poetry for me.
  
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  Adam Carrico

  “Yes, though Grief should know me hers while the world goes round, it could not in truth be said this was lost on me: a rock-maple showing red, burrs beneath a tree.”
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  Bernie Gourley

  "The Harp-Weaver" is an evocative narrative poem that tells the story of a parent struggling with poverty. The collection includes sonnets and many other forms of poetry in Millay's sassy, well-crafted style of verse.
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  Tara

  Beautiful prose from a classic poet.
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  Grace

  This is a very quaint book of poetry. There is simply no other way to describe it. While it was definitely not my favorite poetry around, it was cute. I feel like I must note that Millay knows her flowers too. Her poetry was simple and relaxing.
  
  Would I recommend it? I do think there are other poets out there better than her, but she’s not terrible.
  
  Warning/heads up/what’s in this book - less than five curses, and the term “lover” was used once or twice. Most of what she wrote poetry on was hard for me to grasp on some level, but there isn’t anything in here that would make some run for the hills.
  
  Other: I couldn’t find a picture of the copy I got out. The particular copy I read was from the library, and Goodreads doesn’t seem to have that version. It was a hardcover, 94 pages, dark brown, bordering on black, small and slim copy. It’s cover wasn’t flashy. It was just that dark brown color previously mentioned, and the faded gold color that noted the title and author on the front didn’t pop out. The pages were a little yellow with age and had the musty smell of an old book. It was truly charming and fit the book and poetry perfectly!)
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  Lucy

  XVIII
  I, being born a woman and distressed
  By all the needs and notions of my kind,
  Am urged by your propinquity to find
  Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
  To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
  So subtly is the fume of life designed,
  To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
  And leave me once again undone, possessed.
  Think not for this, however, the poor treason
  Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
  I shall remember you with love, or season
  My scorn with pity,--let me make it plain:
  I find this frenzy insufficient reason
  For conversation when we meet again.
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  Yve

  My favorite poems:
  * Departure
  * “I know I am but summer to your heart,”
  * “Pity me not because the light of day”
  * The Wood Road
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  Brian

  The more I read her the more I love her.
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  Catherine

  poetry